Monday, March 28

Many year ago

Well actually only 4, but still ….  I wandered into my local quilt store - the Quilter's Corner and they had the most beautiful quilt hanging up.  Bargello in shades of purple, blue, green and my it was just divine.   


My eldest daughter had recently been married and I thought wow that would make a wonderful 1st Anniversary wedding gift.   So Liisa kindly put together a kit for me including the book - Twist and Turn Bargello Quilts by Eileen Wright, together with batik prints to make the Cosmic Quilt.



Fast forward 2 years and well I was going on a retreat for 4 days on the June long weekend, what to take, what to take??  I decided I would take the quilt, which was just as I had bought it packed in a zip lock bag with the book, I'd done nothing on it. 

So I trundled off the wilds of Victoria with a bunch of gorgeous mama's and through the kindness of one - who lives in Victoria and kindly bought her lovely Bernina, I cut and trimmed, unpicked and sewed and sewed some more.  

I thought there was no way in heck I was going to get the top of this quilt finished in 4 days - though really only 2 with arrival times, sharing time, shopping time etc etc.   But anyways on day two, I cut and stacked and measured and stacked and stack and cut and I finished one quarter section.   

And then on day three, the same continued and well I'm like no way and very late at night, I stopped before I made any more mistakes, I was tired and whilst warm and cosy the lighting for this old girl was a bit dim.  I'd finished just half the quilt top.  

But the next morning revived and refreshed and whilst other lovely ladies snoozed in bed, I kept at it an by about 11 on day 3, I had miraculously finished the entire top and oh my gosh did she look just lovely.

Lovingly packing her into my carry on - no way was I trusted checked luggage back to Brisbane.   I arrived home with hubby saying gorgeous and me vowing to finish it up in quick order.

…. Fast forward nearly a year later and guess what I still wasn't finished, I'd bought the backing and the wadding and I'd dithered for ages about adding a border, i wanted it to be queen size for their bed.  But after discussing it with two lovely quilting friends, both of them said don't, just bind it.  So that's what I ended up doing.

Mr Cherub and the small cherubs helped with the basting and I was hoping that it wouldn't take forever to quit it tougher, I had asked the quilt shop for advice on where to quilt and I tried that and then decided that it wasn't working, and unpicked that bit.  I just ended up quilting in the ditch every third row or so and I'm glad I did, the design is fussy and I wanted clean.


So I've quilted and bound it by machine and whilst I did need to use my deck and our mega table to spread out it wasn't as bad as I thought.  And by lunchtime on Easter Monday she's all done and ready for delivery when we see our eldest next weekend.  I wasn't again trusting the quilt to Australia Post … not that I've ever lost anything with them, but well I wasn't chancing it. 


Now to make sure my DD knows its not for her cats but just for her and her Mr Cherub. 


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